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A lot of my posts lately have concerned technologies that help those in the human rights fields communicate and share in a secure way.  Signing up for a Google account provides you with an easy way to communicate with people anywhere in the world, maintain a fairly secure digital identity, and share things more easily with a community (or even just a few people).  In this post I want to talk about some of the useful features of a Google account and how to use them.

A lot of my posts lately have concerned technologies that help those in the human rights fields communicate and share in a secure way.  Signing up for a Google account provides you with an easy way to communicate with people anywhere in the world, maintain a fairly secure digital identity, and share things more easily with a community (or even just a few people).  In this post I want to talk about some of the useful features of a Google account and how to use them.

• First, there's your Google profile. With a Google profile, you can easily share any of your web content in one central location.  You can include links to your Facebook or Twitter account (for more info, see my blog post on Twitter), your blog, a Flickr, Picasa, or another online photos account, or anything else you might want to share.  In terms of security, no private information will be displayed on your profile unless you add it yourself.  Something I think is really neat is the 'send a message' option, which enables Google users to send you a message without ever knowing your e-mail address.  It's important to note that is only for Google users, not for those using other types of webmail .  You can add photos, as well as create a short bio, and add contact information (but you have control over who sees it).  For those who are less concerned about security, you can make yourself more easily searchable by making your full name public.

• As part of your Google profile, you get a Gmail account.  Gmail is really great because you can use "https://www.gmail.com" in order to make sure that your email connection is secure.  If you want more information on this, you can go to my previous post "Securing Your E-mail", which outlines exactly how to use "https://" to make your email communications more secure (and it's really easy!).  Another great thing about Gmail is that it has built in chat, voice and video. 

• These are all feature of Google Talk, which allows users to see the availability of friends online, send instant text messages, go directly from text to voice chat, and chat right from your desktop or from Gmail. Google Talk includes free PC-to-PC voice chat, the sending and receiving of voicemail, unlimited file transfers, as well as video-chat, group chat, and the option to reply to an e-mail through chat (if the other person is online).  There are also applications for other IM systems that allow you to connect through the Google Talk network, which connects you to other Google users.

• Along with Gmail, you can also use Google Calendar, which allows you to share and create calendars with other Google users.  This is really great for the workplace, to keep track of your personal life, and also for any kind of group which wants to stay organized.  The calendar function allows multiple different people to keep track of their schedules on one calendar that multiple google users can have access to.

• Google Groups are another great function of Google.  Google groups allow you to create or join groups that are based on your interests or involvements.  You can also search or browse for information and find a discussion or a group based on whatever you're looking for.  If you start a group, you can also start a discussion to get group members talking.  This would be really great to facilitate discussion among members of the human rights community about successful or unsuccessful tactics as well as facilitate the sharing of experiences of group members.  It would also allow users to expand their current community and increase their connections.  You can choose whether you want to read and respond to messages online, or whether you'd prefer to do it through e-mail.  You can create web pages inside your group, which allows group members to share documents or anything else the group wants to publish online.  Any member of the group can view, contribute, or comment on the pages. There's already a ton of existing groups that are searchable under the term "human rights" (I found around 900), so there is certainly a large number of groups which are already patricipating in dialogues and discussions about the issue of human rights worldwide. 

• Google Docs is a web-based word processor and spreadsheet that allows you to collaborate and share with other Google users.  In addition to creating new spreadsheets, presentations, and word documents, you can also import your old ones.  When creating new documents you can either start from scratch or use a template.  You can choose who has access to your documents and share documents instantly.  You can also edit and present with others in real-time, for spreadsheets there's an online chat window, and for other documents you can tell who revised what and when.  This allows you to access your work from anywhere, which is helpful for those who do a lot of traveling and don't want to bring along their computer.  It's also a safe way to store your work because online storage and auto-save options.

As the above examples demonstrate, there are a lot of things that Google can provide users with, and perhaps the best part is that most of it is free and comes with a standard google account.  Having a google account provides activists with an easy way to stay connected, share, and build communities regardless of geographical constraints.  The added option of using https:// as a way to make communication more secure is yet another bonus. If anyone has any other information about ways in which Google can be used as a tool for activists, I'd love to hear from people about their own experiences and thoughts on the issue.